A crescent moon rises above the new tower of the Bay Bridge as seen recently from Emeryville.

Photo: Frederic Larson

A crescent moon rises above the new tower of the Bay Bridge as seen...

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The east bay hills are visible as the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge opened shortly after 10pm Monday September 2, 2013, in Oakland, Calif., much to the delight of Bay Area residents.

Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle

The east bay hills are visible as the new eastern span of the Bay...

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Oakland Mayor Jean Quan enjoyed her ride on the new path Tuesday September 3, 2013. The Alexander Zuckermann bicycle and pedestrian path on the new eastern span of the Oakland Bay Bridge was opened Tuesday.

Photo: Brant Ward / The Chronicle

Oakland Mayor Jean Quan enjoyed her ride on the new path Tuesday...

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The new eastern span of the Bay Bridge opened shortly after 10pm Monday September 2, 2013 much to the delight of Bay Area residents.

Photo: Brant Ward, The Chronicle

The new eastern span of the Bay Bridge opened shortly after 10pm...

Image 5 of 5

The sun hit the bridge as cars drove over the new eastern span Monday September 2, 2013. The celebration for the opening of the eastern span of the Bay Bridge began with a ceremony in the Bridge Yard building near the toll plaza, followed by a chain cutting ceremony nearby.

Whether they march or soar, straddle or slide, the best bridges take command of the landscape as though they were destined to be there all along.

By that standard, the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge falls short.

There's a lot to like about the 2.2-mile procession from Oakland to Yerba Buena Island. Small details catch you by surprise and the main attraction, the web of cables slung from a central tower to cradle the roadway within, has the feel of an airy cathedral inside. Viewed from afar, the white lines of steel radiate a gracious strength.

But the elements don't add up to something so powerful or profound that the $6.4 billion price tag becomes a bargain. The span that opened this month is an engineered act of architecture that wants to be iconic, and it doesn't measure up to the task.

If this seems like a high bar to set, there's a reason.

The reason the Bay Area is home to the world's largest self-anchored single-tower suspension bridge is that decision-makers insisted a seismically safe replacement for the original eastern span couldn't just be seismically safe. There was a "design task force" of politicians and dozens of public hearings before the current design approach was selected in 1998, more than 15 years ago.

Mostly mudflats

Never mind that this stretch of the bay is largely mudflats, where the only real need for something besides a roadway on piers is a half-mile before Yerba Buena Island. There, the bay floor drops to channel-like depth.

It was our current governor, Jerry Brown, who insisted as mayor-elect of Oakland that "we must create a spectacular structure" to "serve as a landmark which places Oakland there in the world imagination. "The squabbles over the design set a pattern of grandstanding and obstructions that knocked the project off course again and again.

Out of the political muck rises a single tower holding a single cable that slings down from the 525-foot peak and then passes beneath the roadbed on the east and west, holding 10 lanes in place with a deft balance of tension and ease. The tower itself rises between the roadbeds, which are separated by 45 feet but connected at the bottom by concrete beams.

Laborious to explain, the effect in real life is surprisingly relaxed - one of the best things about the design. The tower rises in the middle of the highway, so the cables move outward as they descend to the roadbed. The diagonal curves add a bit of swing to the overall scene, as opposed to the steady rhythm that one associates with a suspension bridge.

This fresh twist to a familiar type of structure is just one example of the designers going to elaborate lengths to create something that makes an impression on its own.

The white light poles that line the middle of the skyway mimic the tower's form and are custom-designed, climbing in height from 23 feet to 65 feet as they approach the tower. The metal barriers lining the path for pedestrians and bicyclists along the eastbound lanes are topped by hand rails that are round, like the main cable.

"The White Span" is the name given to the structure by Donald MacDonald, the San Francisco architect who worked with New York engineer Herbert Rothman as sub-consultants to refine the concept of the self-anchored suspension bridge for the design firms of record, T.Y. Lin International and Moffatt & Nichol Engineers.

'A symbol'

"I wanted to pick up on the necklace of catenary forms around the bay, and also create a beautiful form," MacDonald said last week. "It was so important in my mind to have the East Bay and Oakland have its own bridge, something special - a symbol."

But this isn't an artistic composition. It's a bridge. Once you are on it, the pure white vision confronts the realities of infrastructure.

The barriers along the roadbed are solid concrete, crimping views of the water. MacDonald and landscape architect Clive Endress wanted open metal barriers but couldn't satisfy Caltrans skeptics with regards to safety. The surface of the pathway is polyester concrete painted two shades of gray, a distinction meant to keep walkers and bikers apart (let's hope it works). Asphalt is asphalt.

Yes, once inside the weave of cables there's a kinetic rush - but unless you're stuck in traffic, that rush comes and goes in less than half a minute.

From the other direction, emerging from Yerba Buena Island, the tunnel-like confinement of the west span's lower deck opens up. But this is also where the various architectural elements collide. Instead of grand vistas and an immense graceful cable, what's in the foreground are those emphatic light poles.

The white paint isn't the only sign they want to be noticed. Each one is at least twice as thick as the standard poles that line freeways, with an array of angled bulbs at the top.

According to MacDonald, the light posts are a way to strengthen the visual unity of the span, a procession of white lines ascending to the central tower. There's a more basic design function as well: "The viaduct has nothing otherwise," he said. "We felt we had to put something on it."

The staccato strokes might be fine on the viaduct. At Yerba Buena Island, they're a thicket that mars the swooped grace of the cables. It's another sign of the architecture trying hard to be memorable where there's no real engineering need.

Not all in place yet

Perhaps it's still too early to take full stock of the east span. The trussed structure from 1936 remains alongside it, empty but still blocking the views of Oakland that are intended as a vital part of the experience. The bicycle-pedestrian path stops abruptly to the west of the tower; connections to the island won't open until 2015, after the trussed remnants come down. The park that's planned where the bridge hits ground is still in the development stage.

Perhaps. My guess, though, is that when all the work is finished we'll have pretty much what we have today. Instead of the utilitarian structure that served us for 76 years there will be a carefully designed, well-crafted span that's an attractive presence.

But an icon on par with the majestic Golden Gate Bridge or the brawny western span? Not even close.